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<title>Liebestod by Schattenfeuer</title>
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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25746514">Liebestod</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Schattenfeuer/pseuds/Schattenfeuer'>Schattenfeuer</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Nightmare Harem (Visual Novel)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Darkfic, F/M, Gen, Heartbreak, Hurt No Comfort, Mourning, Other, Reader-Insert, genderneutral reader</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 03:16:20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,408</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25746514</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Schattenfeuer/pseuds/Schattenfeuer</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Liebestod (n.); to desire death as the ultimate fulfillment of a doomed love</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Mikael/reader</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Liebestod</h2></a>
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    <p>You had done it. Finally, you had reached it, this elusive goal of happiness was resting in the palm of your clasped hands. Things were looking up, now that Nightmare did no longer tether on the edge of becoming an uninhabitable wasteland without a single drop of water, you still smiled when you remembered how relieved you had been when the first drop had turned into gushing rivers. When the current returned, stronger than ever. And all of that thanks to a single tear, thanks to an angel and his melting heart. </p><p>Lucas’ last words had finally made sense in your mind, they had clicked the moment the knife had been ripped out of your hand to never drink even a single drop of your blood. No one had to be sacrificed, it seemed that the world was finally on its course to become a better place. Hope bloomed like the flowers in spring, a feeling so sweet and refreshing that it bordered on being addictive. </p><p>When peace had finally returned, you had feared at first that the tension between the two sides would once again rise up, a fear that was not without reason, as they had been at conflict with each other since forever. At least when you believed the spoken word, the rumors and the little quips thrown in, you couldn’t exactly open up a history book and read for yourself, the characters were still a mystery with seven seals to you, but that too would change. Later. </p><p>Not today though. Today would be special, as something occured that had been unknown to the inhabitants of Nightmare, an old friendship rekindled, two former enemies had gathered at this special place to witness and participate in a ritual as old as time. A ritual shared between lovers to become one, you had laughed at first when you had heard Lucia’s comment, back then when you had initiated the first step towards a brighter future. Diplomacy was not what you had in mind back then, just simple honesty, yet maybe it had been exactly that which had been needed. </p><p>Someone neutral, someone affiliated and loved by both sides to become the glue to hold them together, to put everything into one big picture. And what a picture it was, colorful and lively, dripped with tears and happiness, the up and down of life itself woven intricately into each other with your hand guiding the needle and thread of fate itself. </p><p>You had to swallow a laugh when you looked upon the gathered crowd with fondness coloring your eyes in a color too bright to put a name upon, your hand resting safely and warmly in his, your fingers intertwined since the moment the ceremony had come to its sparkling, euphoric finale. Nightmare was different from your old world, in so many ways that it made your head spin, not that you actually complained about that though, not now, not when you were so ridiculously happy that your cheeks started to hurt from all the smiling. </p><p>You felt his eyes on you and when you turned your head ever so slightly to the side, you could make out his gentle expression, unguarded and openly fond of you, a sight that always succeeded in warming your heart. And it blinded you. </p><p>No one could blame you for it, you were newly weds, those tended to lose sight of reality when in the company of your spouse, but really, he should have known better. Had it not been him who had concocted this plan to plant the seeds of war? True, you had thwarted this and many other plans by simply being yourself, idealistic, naive and so very headstrong, maybe he had thought of you as an entity without enemies. As someone untouchable because everyone who came in contact with you was enamored in one way or the other. </p><p>But apparently, someone hated you enough to do this to you. To put a blade through your heart, robbing you of the one thing he wanted to protect at all costs. All around him, chaos broke loose, but he was frozen in place, transfixed on the splotch of wet redness that spread over your white dress like a poppy flower in full bloom, you didn’t even had the time to change your expression before the light inside you was snuffed out and your body crumbled into his chest, blood imitating your warm touch in the cruelest of ways as it kept seeping out of the wound, pouring, gushing like Nightmare’s rivers in the night of the red moon. </p><p>He choked and while his hands trembled, his knuckles stood out white underneath his skin, his grip too hard on you, as if he could squeeze the life back inside of this hollow husk you left behind. A scream echoed within his skull, loud enough to make his teeth clatter and only vaguely he noticed that it was his own voice screaming back at him as he cradled you against his body, protective and useless at the same time. There was nothing left to protect, everything he held dear was slipping, falling between his fingers as if he was trying to hold fine sand in his fist. </p><p>Whimpering your name, he did not cared who saw his weakness, not when he lifted his hand to brush a strand of your hair out of your face, not when he left a smear of red on your cheek by doing so, your eyes...they haunted him, the image of them - empty, blank like glass, pretty in their stillness and unsettling in their lifelessness - was seared behind his eyelids, his tears which had once saved your life were useless now, yet kept falling like warm rain, as he kept rocking you back and forth. </p><p>If the culprit had escaped or had been killed by one of the many others that were around him, he did not knew, for the longest time it had just been him and you, as you laid there on the cold floor, the carpet drenched in your blood just as his robes, as your dress, even his hands were stained when they finally pried your lifeless corpse away from him. In this moment he felt cold, so cold like never before, for he had had a taste of spring’s warm sun before it had been ripped away oh so cruelly. </p><p>In a way the one hand holding the knife had not just killed one person that day but two, as he felt like dying every single day after that. Even as the sun and the moon continued their endless chase across the vast horizon, he felt the blood on his skin. Heavy like a burden, hot like liquid fire, it burned and hurt and no matter how hard he washed his hands, he could always see it, feel its weight as it dripped over his fingers, collected and overflew in the palm of his hands. This was worse than dying, this slow, creeping process of not-death that kept him in a state of constant ruin. </p><p>And not him alone. Without the hand to guide it, the image of peace that you had woven back then was coming apart at the seams, fraying and frazzling as grief was quickly becoming suffocating and accusations followed suit, sharp words were exchanged, escalated and now here they were. </p><p>Friends turned rivals and finally enemies and yet, as swords collided and destruction followed him like his shadow, there was no relief of the weight crushing him, Lucia had nothing for him but a glance of pity as they clashed, over and over again, until he felt he had jumped back in time, back to this dreadful day where the robe hugging his body had been drenched by your blood, until it felt like he was bound by it. </p><p>He was so tired, at this point there was no hatred left in him as the fires of rage stuttered and burned out and your image came back to haunt a man already dead and yet somehow still able to draw one heaving breath after the other. What you had realized so long ago, came only now to him, that the war he had so desired before meeting you, would be the thing to break him. And in a way, you were right, it would be the death of him. </p><p>But it had been you that had broken him.</p>
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